How accountable is Lee
The question of how responsible is Lee for his own actions is one that plays a pivotal role throughout the story of Libra . Initially posed by his mother, the question of how much of Lee's life he had control of is up in the air. One could argue that Lee eventually joining the marines was inevitable considering he was a lower-class kid with no safety net, and he needed the security that joining the marines could provide for him. But I believe beyond that Lee's life is the result of his own decisions. He gets punished for a crime of provoking a senior officer, which he complains about, but fails to realize that he had to opportunity to back off at any time. I feel like Lee creates certain realities of himself in his mind, and then gets frustrated and commits extreme acts to create these realities. Two examples of this include shooting himself to get out of the marines and slitting his wrists in Russia to gain citizenship there. He is willing to harm himself to get what he wants...